With the advent of new technology, people are more reliant on electronic devices and systems in their daily routine. This causes an increase in manufacturing and producing of these electronic devices and systems. In addition, the manufacturing of smaller and smaller end user products has driven semiconductor manufactures to continually decrease the size and the power consumption of semiconductors devices, which has created a variety of challenges to the manufacturer. Currently, these semiconductor devices are singulated from a whole wafer by processes involving diamond saw technology, well known in the art of wafer fabrication. Dicing tapes have also helped to speed up the throughput and the cost effectiveness of singulation, but the downside to dicing tapes is that a die could be difficult to remove from the dicing tape or that the residue from the dicing tape can be hard to remove or clean off of a die. Thus, there is no cost effective and highly yielding technology that allows for a semiconductive wafer to be cut into a plurality of dies.
An objective of the present invention is to utilize a mobile electrostatic carrier (MESC) during singulation of the wafer fabrication process. The MESC is able to hold and to gently release thin semiconductive substrates and does not require extra steps to clean. The MESC is an electrostatic temporary bond technology that provides a rigid contamination-free handling solution for fragile non-standard substrates and small devices without the need for fasteners or adhesives. In addition, the MESC is able to carry these thin semiconductive substrates without permanent connections to an external power supply, vacuum supply, or mechanical clamping assembly. The MESC is able to bond so strongly to a thin semiconductive substrate that the MESC can hold onto the thin semiconductive substrate during different manufacturing processes with large sheer forces such as grinding or singulation.
In order to address the aforementioned problem with the current technology used during singulation of the wafer fabrication process, the MESC is used to mount a semiconductive wafer so that the semiconductive wafer is properly held in place while being cut into a plurality of dies by some means known in the art. Once the semiconductive wafer is separated into the plurality of dies, the MESC can be transported to a different location with the individual dies still firmly attached to MESC. When the electrostatic bond is discharged by the MESC, the individual dies can be readily and easily removed from the MESC.